6/30/2008

. . . for traffic here. We had over half a million page views here in June — easily double the normal month.

You can see from the graph that it’s an outlier and is unlikely to repeat. Still, we may have picked up a couple dozen extra permanent readers somewhere in there, and that’s always good.

And we’re about to pass 10 million page views for the life of the blog, sometime in the next few days.

Thanks for reading, and spread the word!

P.S. Just to put it in perspective, my entire month of June was like a couple of days’ worth of traffic at Instapundit.

P.P.S. It’s not even two average days at Hot Air. Speaking of which, did you guys realize that Hot Air’s traffic has significantly surpassed the traffic of Instapundit and Michelle Malkin? I think it might be the most highly trafficked conservative blog there is.

SAN FRANCISCO — An effort by San Francisco to shield eight young Honduran crack dealers from federal immigration officials backfired when the youths escaped from Southern California group homes within days of their arrival, officials said Monday.

The walkaways are the latest in a string of embarrassments for city officials, who are protecting illegal alien drug dealers from federal authorities and possible deportation because of San Francisco’s 1989 declaration that the city is a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants.

I have to take issue with the wording of the first sentence in the story. San Francisco’s efforts to shield illegal alien crack dealers from federal immigration officials most obviously did not “backfire” as the report states…The city’s efforts worked only too well. After all, you don’t see them in federal custody, do ya?

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This post may be overtaken by events in the days ahead, but I’ve been thinking about when/if we will see fallout in Obama’s fundraising that might be tied to the series of controversies surrounding him beginning with the Rev. Wright affair, and running through some of his policy reversals over the last couple weeks.

As a recap, here are some of the pertinent fundraising numbers for Obama going back to the first quarter of 2007 when he announced his candidacy:

Q1– $25 million

Q2 — $31 million

Q3 — $19 million

Q4 — $24 million

For 2008, the reporting has been monthly rather than quarterly:

Jan — $37 million

Feb — $57 million

Mar — $43 million

Apr — $32 million

May — $23 million

Obama was able to put distance between him and Clinton beginning with a win in the Louisiana primary on Feb. 9. He won 10 straight contests over her after Super Tuesday when the Clinton campaign had not game-planned a scenario where Clinton had not secured the nomination on Super Tuesday and Obama was better prepared to continue the fight. Between Super Tuesday (Feb. 5) and Clinton’s wins in Texas and Ohio on March 4, Obama won contests in LA, ME, VA, DC, MD, WI, WA, and HI, creating the cushion over her in pledged delegates that held up through PR in June.

Having won key early contests in Iowa and SC, Obama was able to raise $37 million in Jan., and after surviving Super Tuesday, he raised $57 million in Feb at the same time he went on his winning streak.

With the Clinton winning in Texas and Ohio in early March to stay in the race, Obama contined to raise money at a significant rate in March ($43 million).

But it was March 13 that the Rev. Wright affair hit the airwaves, and it was March 18 that Obama gave his race speech in Philadephia. Needless to say, that was only the beginning of his trouble as various assocations from his days in Chicago began to come to the surface for the first time.

April fundraising — $32 million (-11 million from March)

May fundraising — $23 million.

While it might make perfect sense to conclude that Obama’s fundraising was certain to take a pause after it became clear in mid-April that he was going to prevail over Clinton for the nomination, there still remains the question of whether he will show any signs of continuing weakness in fundraising as a fallout from the controversies that dogged him in March and April, as well as from the lag in enthusiasm that might be beginning to set in on the left-wing as he begins to walk-back from them on issues like FISA reform, Iraq, gun control, death penalty, etc.

They’ll still vote for him in November, but will they contribute money to him as aggressively as they did before these warts began to appear?

It’s not “nice” to ask the question, but it’s actually a pretty good question. Yes, we all know that John McCain was captured and tortured in Vietnam (McCain won’t let you forget). A lot of people don’t know, however, that McCain made a propaganda video for the enemy while he was in captivity. Putting that bit of disloyalty aside, what exactly is McCain’s military experience that prepares him for being commander in chief?

And who better to pose the question than War Hero John Aravosis?

The temptation to become Outrageously Outraged is understandable, and I salute those who give free rein to their anger. Feel free to do so in comments, in fact.

Nevertheless, let’s not lose sight of the fact that it helps Republicans for the public to focus on Aravosis’s question.

Aravosis, in addition to being a punk, obviously doesn’t understand this.

The Washington Postattempts to inoculate Obama against credible charges of opportunismreports:

Sen. John McCain’s allies have seized on a new and aggressive line of attack against Sen. Barack Obama, casting the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee as an opportunistic and self-obsessed politician who will do and say anything to get elected.

So if it seems like Obama will say anything to get elected, remember: it’s an illusion. It’s all part of a “line of attack” that McCain’s allies have “seized on” to “cast[]” Obama in a bad light.

It’s just like those damn Republicans to try to trick you like that. Don’t be fooled!

In connection with the Kozinski controversy, the L.A. Times quoted two legal experts, Laurie Levenson of Loyola Law School, and Stephen Gillers of the New York University Law School.

Both are quoted often in the L.A. Times as experts on legal issues. Prof. Gillers specializes in legal ethics.

Since the time that Professors Levenson and Gillers were quoted, some new information has come to light concerning the material on Judge Kozinski’s server/website.

For example, I published a letter from Marcy Tiffany, the wife of Judge Kozinski, who argued that the facts were substantially different from what the L.A. Times had reported.

Certain aspects of her letter were corroborated by information in posts of mine, showing that the material described by the L.A. Times had a humorous component that the paper did not sufficiently describe. (See here, here, here, and here.)

I decided to send Professors Levenson and Gillers links to this material, and ask them whether the new developments have changed their mind.

For her part, Prof. Levenson decided to “defer to the Third Circuit committee investigating this matter for further comment.”

Prof. Gillers gave me a full response, asking only that I publish his remarks in their entirety. (I would have anyway.)

Prof. Gillers’s remarks are very thoughtful. The highlights are as follows:

Prof. Gillers does not believe that Judge Kozinski needs to be disciplined in connection with this controversy.

Although he believes Judge Kozinski could have judged the case fairly, Prof. Gillers continues to believe recusal was proper.

Prof. Gillers says that, despite the fact that the material on Judge Kozinski’s website/server was largely intended to be humorous, many will still see that material as pornographic.

Prof. Gillers continues to believe that Judge Kozinski was seriously negligent in allowing the public to access the material. Although Prof. Gillers does not defend Mr. Sanai, Prof. Gillers rejects the view that Mr. Sanai’s actions were analogous to the burglary of a private study.

Prof. Gillers continues to believe that Judge Kozinski is a “treasure” on the federal bench, and that opinion has not been shaken by this controversy. He believes that this incident will pass.

I encourage every reader to read Prof. Gillers’s remarks in their entirety. Visitors to the main page should click “more” to read them.

‘After all, if we did that, it might end up interfering with this nation’s higher priority to completely ignore its immigration laws.’

Ok. That wasn’t an exact quote. But that is what was said, in essence.

Unbelievable –

San Francisco juvenile probation officials – citing the city’s immigrant sanctuary status – are protecting Honduran youths caught dealing crack cocaine from possible federal deportation and have given some offenders a city-paid flight home with carte blanche to return.

The city’s practices recently prompted a federal criminal investigation into whether San Francisco has been systematically circumventing U.S. immigration law, according to officials with knowledge of the matter.

The media should not live in constant fear of facing a libel suit every time a provocative commentary is published or broadcast, the Supreme Court of Canada said yesterday in a major ruling won by controversial Vancouver radio broadcaster Rafe Mair.

In a 9-0 decision that modernizes the defence of fair comment, the court found that Mr. Mair did not defame Christian-values advocate Kari Simpson when he denounced her stand on a book-banning controversy.

Read the whole thing here. You should also check out the court’s full opinion here.

I’ll admit that I don’t have much respect for the rather lazy and worn out argument that tries to compare school board officials to ‘Nazis’ or ‘Klan members’ simply because they reject certain books for a school curriculum or refuse to carry them on campus. But that doesn’t mean that one should face the threat of a lawsuit merely for engaging in cliched hyperbole.

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